Keeping Track of History: The Relevance of Oral Traditions and Material Memory from a Feminist Perspective

Abstract

It is often said that men and women have very different perceptions of situations. Strangely, this perception is overlooked when recounting the past and how certain situations unfolded. When there is a conversation around any kind of conflict, the focus shifts to the battlefields, the statistics of people losing their lives or getting displaced, and finally, what changes the outcome brings. But the insides of houses far away from the battlefields are often neglected. This may raise a question: What about the people living away from the conflict and trying to keep everything normal? What about their side of the story and their voices that might have seen the situation differently? This research will focus on the principal question, “Can the idea of collective memory help reshape the historical landscape of post-independence India?” The idea will be to explore the fields of oral traditions and material memory to rethink and reevaluate the idea of history as we know it and the potential of changing narratives. This essay seeks to explore the subject through a feminist lens, where women and the hidden histories of women in conflict can be studied through material culture. India’s colonial and post-colonial history is open to interpretation through various cultural angles. One of them is how women became a part of the freedom movement and adjusted to the changes that followed. While matrilineal trauma and memory have been examined in memory studies, using material heritage can bring out stories buried within families. This research will aim to take the stories out of history books and place them in common households.